


A Map Called Home

by Kibbers



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Belonging, Finding a Home in Each Other, Finding home, Instant Attraction, Longing, M/M, Mild Smut, Red Coat Kink, Self-Sacrifice, very mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 04:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13629039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kibbers/pseuds/Kibbers
Summary: Phillip's life is all mapped out for him, borders keeping those his father doesn't approve of out. This map he calls misery, and he's resigned to live it out like he's meant to. That is, until P.T. Barnum comes to town with a whole new map, one that just might include love, in the end.





	A Map Called Home

“You can’t change a map’s borders, or call it by a different name,” Phillip’s father used to say, at first when Phillip’s imagination had his geography jumbled and all-over-the-place. Then, also when his eye would stray. When he’d grin at a spectacle in the street dubbed too lowly for his class. When he’d thank someone who wasn’t supposed to be acknowledged at all. As a child, he thought it only something his father said that meant things he was too young to understand, like when he’d talk business and stock and, god forbid, the dangers of love. 

But, Phillip got older and saw what his father was really saying with all of that. His world was a map with borders of high society, of money, of the forbidden, and he couldn’t call it anything but His Life. So, he dined with those his father allowed and snubbed those his father snubbed and he tried to sneak smiles to the people his father couldn’t see. He tried to do what he could. But it was far easier to stay in his borders than to fight. Despite the perpetual emptiness in his chest, he could see no way rebelling would fix that.

He got older. He fought less. Tried to write about what he felt. Blank faces talking at blank faces. The very people who made him feel that way, stiff-smiling and stifled, came to his shows and applauded in the end and Phillip couldn’t say he understood any of it. He wasn’t selling anything but the emptiness in his heart and they loved to see it. Paid to see it. Perhaps he was meant to feel it, then. Perhaps they all did.Still, he couldn’t help but start to call his map Misery, and wonder if that’s what the true title was all along. If his borders were these people in these theatres, these actors droning on those states, the alcohol softening the ache but never relieving it, well he couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything else to his life at all. 

Phillip heard about the circus almost as soon as it began. The muted uproar more than anything made Phillip linger his eye over the flyers he saw tossed to the ground by those seemingly above the exhibition. Phillip long having permanently labeled his life Dreary, labeled it Stiff and Empty and Miserable, saw something new appear on the outskirts of his borders, but within reach. A step or two outside. Just a tiptoe, really. He began to wonder at what would happen if he took that step. He snagged a flyer from the ground and tucked it into his pockets everywhere he went. Something bright always close enough to touch. Something colorful and new. 

It was a few weeks before Phillip slipped his way into the crowd, dressed down and hiding his face. There was a hum in the air he’d never felt in his chest before. A chattering. A lightness. The people in this world were allowed to smile. To laugh. Phillip found himself grinning at just that, the openness of all these people to be joyful. 

He sat far in the back. Isolated. Still separate from this world. His map was still called High Society, but, here, he got a glimpse of something else. He wasn’t sure all of this would be worth the wrath of his father if he found out Phillip was here, though.

Wasn’t sold even when the performers came out in all their wonder at the start of the show. It was grand, and great, he would admit to that. Spectacular, truly. But, was seeing this really worth losing his inheritance? His family? Would it really be worth the disgust of those he called friends if he was caught in this crowd?

Phillip forget everything when P.T. Barnum walked into the ring. Tall and tanned and tucked into a vibrantly gleaming coat that seemed to be made of something more imaginative than Phillip had ever been in his plays, it shattered the ground beneath his feet. The ringmaster was fluid. Always moving. Smooth and strong and smiling. He shined. The man himself seemed to be cut from a different cloth than Phillip. One that radiated joy. 

Phillip, sitting in that audience, felt himself begin to ache for that, for  _ him _ , in that very instant he stepped into the light. For his life. For that joy. For a map that allowed him to be someone like that. Maybe if he could just touch him, just run one finger down the buttons on that coat, he’d know that there was a chance to be that happy in his life. Even that would be enough to go back to his empty life with empty bottles and empty people that was waiting for him. He tried to convince himself that would be enough. That anything short of this, here, would be enough.

He spent the performance on the edge of his seat. Leaning forward. His whole body reaching out for that man. Eyes unable to look away, Phillip forgot to hide himself in the shadows for the rest of the show. Forgot he wasn’t meant to be here. His chest, his heart, told him otherwise.  

At the bow, Phillip wanted more than anything for them to go again, to start the night over, to keep it going forever. He came back to himself when the showman left the stage though, came back to who he was and where he was and all the reasons he shouldn’t have been there in the first place. But, the ache stayed. Oh, did it stay, and oh did it eat him. 

He knew he had to leave. Knew he couldn’t risk being seen at the show, couldn’t risk going into the crowd just to touch the impossible thing that was P.T. Barnum. Just to make sure something so grand and grinning could be real. 

No matter how much the ache felt like his heart was being eaten alive, Phillip slipped from the building and hurried his way back to a home where this wasn’t allowed. None of it. All the while, he felt his borders shrinking much smaller than they’d ever felt before. He wondered how one man could rob his life of air. Called his life Suffocating. Knew he’d never get to breathe again. 

He leaned heavier on the bottle, visions of Phineas Taylor Barnum plastered behind his eyelids. He could pretend the alcohol made him feel just as warm. Just as  _ good. _ He’d pretend he’d never seen that damn circus if it made it any easier to get through his days without shattering. But, it was impossible. He’d seen another world, new borders, and longed to live inside that instead.

He went back to writing about empty people and watched his theatres fill with reflections. All of them empty. Unsatisfying. 

He slipped from the theatres as soon as he could, spending his time removed from the crowds as much as possible. They reminded him too much of that night. All the laughter. What he was missing. 

He’d hide on a staircase, in a cove, somewhere nearby but hidden in the shadows, flask in hand. The ones that found him talked nothing at him, and he did his best to return the favor. 

That night, he didn’t look up at the man saying his name. Mumbled something about refunds while fiddling with his hands. But then the man was holding out his hand and introducing himself as the one that had plagued Phillip’s dreams for the past three weeks. The giant, gentle man.

“P.T. Barnum,” he said, sideways grin plastered on his face.

Phillip knew he had to feign disinterest even as his chest burst into life. He let slip, “From the circus?”

“You’ve been?” Barnum asked, grabbing Phillip’s hand. Even that part of the man was warm and strong. Phillip didn’t want to let go. Not ever. 

He realized his mistake, though, and pasted on a grin. 

“God no,” he said, “but I have seen the crowds. People leave your show a great deal happier than when they came in. Which is much more than I can say for my plays.” 

That last part was a mistake. A doorway for Barnum to slide through. A plea, perhaps, for the man standing in front of him to hear his dissatisfaction and whisk him away to somewhere else. Somewhere better. To the world that included that stage and those people and, especially, the man still grinning in front of him. Phillip wasn’t sure if that’s what did it. If that’s what had Barnum walking beside him to a bar down the road with an offer to buy him a drink. Whatever it was, the man offered and Phillip couldn’t say no. So, he didn’t. 

Suddenly, they were sitting side by side, elbows brushing in a bar empty but for themselves. They both had their jackets off and Phillip, in his nerves, had worked his bowtie loose so it hung around his neck. The pure energy radiating off Barnum had him itching to loosen more buttons, strip the layers from his skin, tear at his chest to grasp that fluttering. To feel it in his hands. Maybe if he could hold it, he could hang onto it forever. 

He had heard Barnum’s lust for more was always getting him into trouble, but Phillip hadn’t known that lust would reach him. Would include him. He listened to Barnum’s offer, struck blind by that fact. That someone like Barnum would want someone like Phillip. If only to join his world. To be a part of his life. Oh, how Phillip ached to say yes, the word becoming everything his tongue wanted to form. 

But, but, there were always buts. He had his family to consider. His reputation. Besides, Phineas only wanted his wealth, didn’t care for what Phillip would get from the situation. That’s what he thought anyway, as he protested. Went through his usual reasons, things about borders and limits and what he’d be walking away from, all the while coming back to Phineas, back to him, never able to walk out the door completely.

Then, Phineas was talking about color. About joy. About the things the circus could bring to his life. Phillip met his eyes and knew that Phineas had seen it. Seen the ache. It seemed a mirror image, between them. Phineas knew because he felt the same way. Both of them were wanting things. Always, always wanting.

Despite how it scared him, despite what he’d be giving up, Phillip couldn’t walk out of that room without Phineas’s hand in his own again. It would have shattered him. Made it impossible to go back anyway. He’d met the man and found him better than he’d imagined. Kinder, softer, brighter. His world wouldn’t ever right itself again after that. 

When they finally shook hands, Phillip saw a new map. One with different borders. Ones that allowed Phillip’s chest to rattle with warmth when Phineas’s hand was in his own. One that allowed him to smile. To create. A world called Happy, Perhaps. A world where that was even a possibility. 

He was a breathing man, again, as he wandered around the circus. Phineas always grinning at his side. Phineas always laughing. A new addiction, Phillip was drunk on the time he could be with Phineas, touch Phineas, laugh with Phineas. 

Working on the show was wonderful, too. Phillip found a way to write new things, things that kept his heart-beat and his grin intact, and had the audience grinning too. He threw himself into that and began to think this would be his new life. This grand and giant life, so much bigger with Phineas and his circus in it. 

When Phineas asked for something, Phillip did everything it took to make it happen. He wanted high society, he got the queen. He wanted more, Phillip got him Jenny Lind. Got him tour dates. Got him a new ringmaster. 

Sure, Phillip’s chest ached all the while Phineas was gone, off with Jenny somewhere else, but he would just picture that first night he saw him on the stage and think if anything Phillip did made Phineas half that happy, then it was worth it. He’d been aching and empty his whole life through, what was a few more weeks for something that mattered? For Phineas?

The mob was unexpected, to say the least. The fire even more so. Phillip couldn’t help but think of Phineas when he tore his way into the building to save the rest of his new family. Had Phineas’s grin behind his eyes when the lights went out. He thought it’d be okay, though, to go this way, knowing he’d made a new life for himself. A life he called Happy Happy Happy. He’d gotten to touch Phineas, gotten to smile with him, laugh with him. He’d gotten to love that man, truly, truly love him, and that was enough for Phillip.

Phillip woke up, smoke permanently fingerprinted onto his lungs. Anne was there, at first, the others filtering their way in and out of his room as he dozed. He was happy to see them, so, so happy, but he longed to see Phineas. Didn’t know where Phineas was, if he’d heard it was Phillip’s fault his love had burned to the ground. He knew that he’d no longer be someone in Phineas’s life after he found out. Oh, Phillip dreaded that. Where would he go, if he lost Phineas? Where could he survive, knowing what he couldn’t have?

It was late, the night Phineas wandered into the hospital. Phillip was half-asleep, only seeing the shape of the man as he made his way down the line of empty beds. The nurses busied themselves in another room after Phineas muttered something to them, the girls laughing as they left. He was too far to hear what he’d said, but Phillip thought someone could scream and he wouldn’t hear a thing for the way his heart pounded in his ears. Phineas was here to take his Happy away. He had every right to. But damn did it hurt to see it happen.

“I know why you’re here,” Phillip said, going for his old self, the one that could grin and hide the empty insides beneath it. Might as well get used to it, he supposed. 

“Oh you do, do you?” Phineas said, tossing his coat and hat onto the foot on Philli’s’ bed. He wiped his hands on his thighs, fiddling. Phillip hadn’t ever seen him uncertain before. Not like this. No, he was a sure man, unwavering. He’d fire himself for Phineas if it meant he’d be certain again.

“It’s alright. I’ll be a ghost from now on, don’t you worry about that.”

“A ghost, Phillip what could you possibly mean by that?”

“Phin,” Phillip couldn’t help using the nickname that had been tearing at his throat, something soft just for this last time he saw him, “It’s okay, I know you don’t want me back. I’m the reason you don’t have a circus, after all.”

“Phillip, how could you possibly think I don’t want you?” Phineas moved to sit on the edge of the bed, grabbing Phillip’s bandaged hand in his own. He was warm, so, so warm, and Phillip had a hard time breathing with Phineas sitting that close. “Back at the circus, I mean.”

“There is no circus, Phin. That fact is my fault.”

Phillip drank in Phineas’s features this close. The glint in his eye. The tiny smirk that made its home on his lips perpetually. Oh, he wanted to memorize every inch before he lost him forever. 

“It’s not your fault. It isn’t. I don’t care if you picked up that lantern and burned the place down yourself. I’d still want you back. Still want you there as we rebuild. I only came here to make sure you were okay. When I saw you in that building, on the floor, I thought-”

“Wait, what?” Phillip interrupted. “What do you mean, you saw me on the floor?”

“Ah, I thought you already knew.”

“Knew what?”

“I’m the one that ran in after you, Phillip. I carried you from the building after the roof collapsed. So, I came here to makes sure you made it out alright. After all you’ve done for me, after how I’ve come to care for you, I couldn’t sleep until I knew you were okay.”

“How could you do that? All those people who could have lost you,” Phillip said. Phineas was still holding his hand, and he squeezed as hard as his bandages allowed. That stupid, stupid man. How the world would have grieved, and all that risk for Phillip? “No, there’s nothing in this world worth losing you over, least of all me.”

“You are,” Phineas said. “You don’t even know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“You have changed my life, Phillip Carlyle. For the stricter. For the saner.”

“Ha,” Phillip said.

“For the better, Phillip. For the better. For the best.”

“What are you saying?” Phillip asked. “I get to stay?”

“Dammit, Phillip, I want you to stay forever. With me. You don’t see it, do you? How much we love you? How much  _ I _ love you,” Phineas said. He leaned closer, words coming quick. Everything about him was urgent, earnest, honest. 

His lips were urgent, earnest, honest, too when he leaned over and pressed them to Phillips. Phillip’s surprise was quickly overpowered by the sheer fact that Phineas was kissing him. Oh, how Phillip melted into the kiss. Into the warmth, the magic. He knew Phineas was something far grander than he’d ever get close to, but this was something bigger than that, even. Closer. Softer. Something more real. Curse the fire only for the bandages, Phillip wanted to desperately to tangle his fingers in Phineas’s hair, tug him closer, cling to him. He settled for leaning into the kiss. Sliding his tongue against Phineas’s lips, feeling them slip open, melting into him. 

Phineas’s hands began to explore, to slide down his neck, up his side, curl in the hair at the back of his neck. They seemed to be everywhere, all at once, and Phillip had a hard time doing anything but relishing the feeling of Phineas so close. Phineas touching him. Phineas kissing him. That was, until his lungs began to scream.

“Phin,” Phillip pulled away.

“What?” Phineas asked, backing up ever so slightly. He still had one hand tucked behind Phillip’s head, knees straddling Phillip on either side. Phillip hadn’t even noticed when that happened, and he could feel the heat pool below his stomach at the sight. Phineas above him, Phineas’s crotch aligned with his. It wouldn’t take much, just a shift of his hips, to really get things frantic in here.

“Lungs,” Phillip said, panting, “air.”

Phineas seemed to realize where they were and why all at once. In a vibrant, breathtaking grin split across his face. “Sorry, just got carried away.”

“You tend to do that,” Phillip rasped. A cough escaped from his chest, deep and rattling and the smile fell from Phineas’s face. 

“Oh, Phillip. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“It’s okay,” Phillip said when he caught his breath. He found Phineas’s eyes, the worry between his brow, and grinned a slow grin at him as he said, “It was worth it.”

“Was it now?” Phineas asked, grin returning full force. 

“Yes,” Phillip caught Phineas’s lips in his, wanting to capture that grin for himself. Wanting to taste it. To never see it gone. The borders of his old world would have never allowed this. Not his new one either. But, he thought they could find a new one. One he hoped he could call Love. 

That night, Phineas slept in the hospital bed beside Phillip, able to now that he knew Phillip was okay, now that he could touch him. Sure, the nurses talked, but that hadn’t ever bothered Phineas before. Phillip thought, if it meant he could have Phineas, he could be okay with it too. 

It was a few more days before they let Phillip leave the hospital. There wasn’t much more they could do, and he was pretty sure the nurses were sick of making themselves scarce so they didn’t have to see Phillip and Phineas get a little too familiar with each other. Especially after new patients arrived when a flu spread across the city. No, they were happy to shoo Phillip out the door tugging Phineas behind him by the hand.

Rebuilding took a long time. Phineas tried to protest Phillip’s offer to buy a new place, but there was nothing he could do. Phillip would give every penny to see the grin that spread across Phineas’s face when they bought the land out by the docks. 

It was a lot of work, figuring out how they could do everything they imagined. Putting up the tent, reworking the show. It was even harder finding the time to slip their hands beneath each others’ clothing in the shadows, behind the curtain.

It became a game, after Phineas decided to split his time as ringleader with Phillip, to sneak into the other’s show and watch from somewhere. Phillip would spend his shows searching the crowd, trying to find that face, that smile, in all those people. Phillip always found him, though. Without fail. He could spot that man in a room of one million, the way he shined, how grand he was. Afterwards, they’d sneak off somewhere shadowed, clash together as adrenaline thrummed. 

Phillip loved the nights Phineas was the ringleader the most. The nights he got to sit and watch in a strange parallel to that first night he saw the show. That night particularly, it felt like he was falling in love all over again. He fantasized about running his fingers down the buttons of that coat over and over again, knowing all the while he’d get to in just a moment, just a few minutes more. Phillip leaned against the railing of the stands to wait, grinning each time Phineas met his eyes, always like he knew exactly where Phillip would be. Phillip tapped his toe, shifted around, itching to get his hands on Phineas. 

When the show was over, when the crowd cleared, Phillip didn’t wait two seconds to start tearing the coat from Phineas’s frame, button by button. They moved into the shadows beneath the stands, not yet cleaned up from the night’s show but neither of them caring. One button came loose, another, while Phineas’s hands slid under Phillip’s waistband, tugging his shirt from where it was tucked in, hands finding warm skin. 

It wasn’t ever long before they were pressed against each other, red coat still hanging from Phineas’s shoulders, chest bare below. Phineas knew Phillip liked it when he kept it on, the feel of the fabric against his bare chest. Phineas knew, and he’d make sure it touched Phillip just right. Brushed against the soft skin of his thighs. Let it slide over his dick, get him hard. Phineas knew, and he grinned that maddening grin as he teased Phillip wild with want because of it, because of him. 

Phillip grabbed fistfuls of that magical coat as Phineas wrapped both their dicks in his hand, began to jerk them off together. It wasn’t long until they both came there under the stands, hurrying to get their clothes fixed up before someone came along and found them. They stumbled out towards where everyone had settled after the show, both of them dazed and dizzy, grinning ear to ear. 

When they got close enough, Phillip dropped Phineas’s hand and they parted ways. Phineas going to chat with O’Malley, Phillip wandering up to Anne and Lettie.

“You look a little mused, Carlyle,” Lettie said, small smile on her face. “Doing anything fun?”

“Or anyone,” Anne said, and they snickered to each other, their eyes trailing to Phineas across the ring. 

So, sure, maybe they weren’t the most discreet. Maybe in their urgency, some of the others had wandered into a scene they quickly backed out of. But, this was their family. This place where they belonged. This was the map Carlyle had made for himself, borders keeping only the bad things in this world at bay. He called it Home. Finally, finally. He got to call it Home.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, here I am writing these two again. I can't promise there'll be more, but that's what I said last time. Come say hi on tumblr [ here ](https://kibberswrites.tumblr.com/)or leave a comment below!
> 
> Constructive criticism is okay, but please do it in my inbox on Tumblr instead of the comments because of their public nature. Thanks!


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